ether a charming narrative, full of pretty descriptive
passages, and colored by the evident satisfaction the authors took in
writing it.

* * * * *

"The Secret Woman," by Eden Phillpotts, Macmillan Company, is a little
tale of English farm life, with a picturesque setting, great intensity
of action and passion, and some indefiniteness as to what code of
morals the rather unpleasant performances of its characters should be
judged by.

As adultery, usury, murder and suicide are among these little
eccentricities, offset against superstition, religion and rationalism,
the reader may take his choice of theories. Interest is sustained
without question, and the two women--an older and a younger one--who
as heroines and wrongdoers enlist our sympathy, are attractive and
painted in clearer colors than the men. One or two minor
personalities, however, are clearly drawn, and the dramatic element
forcefully developed.

* * * * *

It would be difficult to hit upon a novelist who shows wider
divergences in his work than Booth Tarkington, not because he gives in
it any special evidence of versatility--a word which implies something
like genius, or at least talent. This peculiarity is due rather to an
arbitrary method in the choice of themes.

In his latest book, "In the Arena," published by McClure, Phillips &
Co., he has given a striking demonstration of this. It is a collection
of six short stories, dealing with the subject of State and municipal
politics. The question of cause and effect here is comparatively
unimportant; whether Mr. Tarkington went to the Indiana legislature to
get material for short stories, or whether he has written these
because of his experience as an assemblyman, is not a matter of
literary interest.

The narrations are not particularly convincing. Those who are familiar
with the practical politician, and his followers and their modern
methods, will find few parallels in the characters and descriptions in
these tales. Political bosses nowadays seldom resort to the crude
device of ballot-box stuffing and threatened blackmail to defeat
reformers, and reformers are unlikely to be so easily frightened as
Farwell was. The game is much more complex than it used to be,
principally because the reformers have learned to play it more
intelligently, and those who fail to give them credit for astuteness
know little about the rules; the politicians t